In many communication technologies, there is a need to shift signals from one frequency to another. Such frequency translation often employs various types of mixers. Unfortunately, the inherent nature of mixing results in signals with a double sideband, which requires additional filtering or wastes available channel space in the allocated frequency spectrum. Further, the mixers often suffer from poor linearity and inject a loss in the signal path, which must often be compensated for with additional amplification. Compensating for linearity and loss shortcomings often results in additional complexity of the circuitry required for frequency translation.
An alternative to mixers has been serrodyne structures, which result in a pure frequency shift wherein the resultant signal has a single sideband. Unfortunately, traditional serrodyne architectures are based on ferrite-based phase shift elements and are not capable of operation at high frequencies due to limitation in switching speeds. In particular, the switching speeds for modern mobile communications is in the hundreds or thousands of Megahertz, which results in pulse transition times in the serrodyne that fall within the sub-nanosecond realm. Magnetically actuated devices simply cannot switch at these speeds. Accordingly, serrodyne architectures based on traditional magnetic architectures cannot operate at the required modulation frequencies for many wireless communication technologies. Thus, there is a need for a frequency translation architecture that relates in a single sideband output signal, and that can operate within a frequency range sufficient for modern wireless communication techniques.